[Kathy Keys]

We use the word ‘culture’ so often in daily conversations and especially in forums such as this, and we blacks seem to love the term ‘black-culture’ (or African-American culture, if you insist on being PC… I don’t). But if you really think about it, a culture takes hundreds of years to develop and grow like a living thing (truly a culture is a living thing when you really think about it). And blacks in this country have only been free of slavery about 140 years and free of Jim Crow laws only about 40 years. So this black-culture we speak of is in its childhood right now. No one wonders about a Hispanic kid named Guillermo, or an Asian kid named Phong, no one seems to care even about an African child named Nnenna (these are all people I know, by the way) but more than a few eyebrows are raised about a black kid named DeShaun. Of course we know that Guillermo’s parents are from Mexico, Phong’s people are Vietnamese, and Nnenna’s family is Nigerian, but DeShaun’s family descends from former slaves, they’ve been here practically forever, so where does this unusual name come from? There is no culture there to draw from like the others and on a deep level, this fact registers with non-blacks and that’s why it’s strange to you. No language, no history other than slavery and oppression, no roots, no music, no religion. The use of unusual names is only one in a long list of the long-term effects of slavery on the collective psyche of any one group. We are still creating our culture.

User Detail :  

Name : Kathy Keys, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 29, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Customer Service, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower class,